2013年5月2日星期四

Cannibalism: Early American Settlers Ate Each Other

The winter of 1609-1610 was a pretty
horrible time to be a resident of Jamestown, the early English settlement in
what is now coastal Virginia. How horrible? Aside from the rampant disease, the
starvation, and attacks by surrounding native tribes, people were also EATING
EACH OTHER.

So confirms new forensic evidence found at
the Jamestown settlement site. Written accounts of the so-called Starving Time
claimed that Jamestown settlers resorted to cannibalism to survive, but this is
the first forensic corroboration of it. Scientists working with Bill Kelso,
director of archeology for the Jamestown Recovery project, uncovered partial
human remains -- a mutilated skull and a disarticulated leg -- in a midden heap
mingled among the butchered remains of horses and dogs.

Suspicious markings on the bones suggested
that this body had also been butchered. Anthropologist Douglas Owsley, of the
Smithsonian Institution, conducted isotopic tests on the bones, revealing that
the skull and leg belonged to an English girl, and the bones' physical
characteristics showed that she was about 14 years old when she died. A variety
of tool marks in the bone show someone, first tentatively and then forcefully,
trying to deflesh her skull. A sharp puncture through the left temple and
subsequent cracking show that someone eventually worked up the nerve or
strength to pry her skull open. Finer knife marks along the cheekbone and
jawline suggest that someone purposefully cut flesh off of the skull.

Owsley and colleagues compared these marks
to those from other known cases of human cannibalism and found remarkable
similarities--enough to conclude that this 14-year-old girl, who the scientists
have dubbed "Jane," was cannibalized by other colonists after her
death of (presumably) natural causes--a desperate, last-ditch effort to save
the rest of the settlement from extinction.